


Namesake

by WaterandWin



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-01
Updated: 2011-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-22 02:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaterandWin/pseuds/WaterandWin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their eyes met and the blackness of space itself paled in comparison to the electricity that ran between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this months and months ago, before it came out that adult trolls were banished to space during or after Mindfang's lifetime. So...space adventure, yay!

When Spinneret heard the drones were coming, she lassoed up her lusus and ran. Running, as with failing to present the civil servants with genetic material, meant death, but the young troll was not and would never be one to face death willingly. If there was even the tiniest whisper of freedom, she would seek it out.

On this occasion, that whisper came on the sails of a ship. It bobbed up and down in the black waters just barely visible from the highest point on Spinneret’s now abandoned hive. She carried with her everything she could fit in one shoulder bag and nothing else. All eight of her pupils were firmly fixed on mast of the distant vessel, which vanished behind the hilltops and reappeared again as the white spider dashed through the landscape, her custodian clinging to her back.

Spinneret breathed in the salty air knowing well that each breath could be counting down to her last. There was no guarantee these pirates (and they were pirates, this she knew for certain by the state of the sails,) would not cull her on the spot. She would have to be lucky, impossibly lucky, to be allowed to sail with them. Impossibly lucky, or just very good with her eyes. Eight sweeps old was young, but not so young as to be a useless burden. She would show them how hard she could work, how far her sweet lusus could spit her venom, how she could kill with a glance and a thought, and maybe, just maybe, they would bring her along away from this accursed planet for a ride among the stars.

And so they did. The work was much harder than she had imagined, but then again she was much tougher than she at first looked. It had taken a bit of bending the captain’s will just to allow her to scrub the floors and chop vegetables, but that first launch was worth it all a hundred times over. The sea bubbled as the ship lowered her rockets beneath the waves, and the canon-worn sails fluttered as the force gathered behind the single punch that flung the creaking and protesting craft, crew, lusi, booty and all up, up, infinitely up, past the cloud cover and into the domain that Spinneret knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, surrounded by a million twinkling lights, she had been hatched to sail.

And so her story began.

As the sweeps rolled by, Spinneret’s chances to prove herself before the captain accumulated. The old troll could have easily been twenty sweeps if not more and some of the young bucks on board could have overpowered her in an instant if they wished, but no one ever dared. Not only was she feared, but she was respected, a feat Spinneret herself could respect considering the captain had no psychic skill at all. The crew would follow her ever order and never question it, as if her blood were the noblest purple instead of the dingy green it really was.

Spinneret would have been kidding herself if she thought the captain would go easy on her as the only other female troll on board. If anything, it was the opposite. As the youngest troll of board, Spinneret has the most to prove. Blood color meant very little on this ship, she would soon learn. Her inexperience showed itself all to brightly as well. Having thought herself an expert with red romance, she was quickly shown just how much of a child she had been. Blackrom fared even worse. Spinneret has never once in her life successfully had a kismesis. She had hated and been hated, sure, but in the end her partners would always bend to her eyes’ will and leave her with nothing but pity for how pathetic they were. She fumbled through black advances with the crew, stolen minutes that left her to be the one bleeding whimpering, but none of them ever lasted. Out of the reach of the empire, she had least had no worries of filling buckets.

Earning the crews respect was a slow process. Part of it happened naturally. As members were killed in combat and new ones replaced them, raising Spinneret up from her status as a newbie. Part of it came from skill. As she harnessed combat experience, she picked herself up better weapons. She had a gift for being able to master almost any type, and that gift accumulated itself into the moment when she wrapped her claws around the Fluorite Octet.

Most of all, though, she gained the respect of the captain on the fateful day she auspictized between her and the first mate. It was a dangerous move to make, but the captain was showing ever sign of teetering on the edge of ripping the first mate’s throat out, and he was doing the same. She could have let it happen, but stranded the way they were and emotions running high from the recent loss of a large part of the crew, Spinneret could only guess what would happen should they lose their captain. And so she put herself between them, something that could have spelled death for her from both parties, and using every ounce of mind control and rhetoric she could muster, she calmed the two trolls down.

It was there that she was allowed to shed her wriggler name and earn surname Mindfang. The captain gave it to her, as she did her hat when she died. At twelve sweeps old, Spinneret Mindfang took on her post as captain of the Gambligants.


	2. Chapter 2

Mindfang was not the obvious choice for the successor, only the one that happened to be by the captain’s side when she fell in battle. Call it luck. Regardless of what the others thought, she denied having done the old captain in herself. Those that saw Spinneret coming back to the ship, streams of blue from her eyes carefully concealed under the brim of her new head-wear, believed her. Others did not. It took time for her to earn place, but earn it she did. She changed as little as possible about the way the ship was run, though as time went on she dared herself greater and greater risks in their exploits. They were worth it in more ways than just the gold she could stockpile away. Ways, however, that were not always obvious.

Mindfang gritted her teeth when it was reported to her there was an imperial ship on their tail. Anyone else would have simply shit themselves. The empire’s ships were notoriously impossible to outrun. Not impossible, actually, but requiring a great deal of luck.

Luck Mindfang was lacking that day.

“Turn the ship ninety degrees,” she ordered when it became apparent that no amount of maneuvering could shape the offending vessel. “We’re shooting this one out.”

And so they did. Canon balls flew at the speedily approaching craft, and all Gambligant lusi capable of flight hurled themselves forward into battle. It was customary to let lusi fight lusi and have bullets speak for the trolls, but it seemed this imperial ship liked to play dirty. Not a single bullet flew past Mindfang in return as she stood by the rail of her boat, one hand on the shrouds, but so many whizzed at the lusi, now but a floating mass of white, now blooming red, yellow, green. Gambligant bullets only rebounded off the imperial ship.

Mindfang barked orders, only to stop mid-sentence when sound of splintering wood cried out directly beneath her feet. She glared down at the offending harpoon still vibrating in the side of her precious boat. But a foot higher, and it could have hit her. For some reason, the image of it stuck in her mind, but she had little time to daydream before the enemy ship had drawn close enough for the imperial scum to begin to board.

If it was hand to hand combat they wanted, it was slaughter they were going to get. Mindfang hopped down from the railing, reaching into her pockets and pulling out her deadly dice. She cast them aside just in time for the owner of the harpoon gun that had distracted her moments ago to swing across by the cord of his weapon. When he landed on deck before her, time froze. Their eyes met and the blackness of space itself paled in comparison to the electricity that ran between them.

The moment could have stretched on for eternity, she thought, but it was interrupted by the last of the Fluorite Octet settling into an unlucky roll. A blue rapier materialized itself into Mindfang’s hands, and her opponent, dropping his gun still connected by a neigh unbreakable line to the thorn in the Gambligant’s side, drew his own blade. And so they fought.

Their surroundings faded away so they could focus on each other and only each other as a deadly tango commenced. Not once did their eye contact break. In skill they were perfectly matched and hard as she may try, Mindfang could not access his mind. No matter how one lunged, the other would block. She gave him false openings to lure him into striking where she could predict it, and yet he always slipped out of the way at the last second like fish. His movements were mesmerizing and fluid and it was only the beads of perspiration on his handsome face that gave away that their fight was actually something challenging for him. The ease with which he moved only made her loathe him more. Once and only did she become distracted, but she was able to block the attack just in time. He had thrown his entire weight into it, and now, their swords crossed, she could do nothing but push back. Their faces were so close she could feel his breath. For a moment she dared look away from his gaze and down at his lips. Time slowed once more and she could have sworn for that second there was not a sound in the universe.

This moment passed as the last had, the roar of battle filled her ears, and Mindfang flicked her vision eight-fold back up only to see her opponent, too, had shifted his attention from her eyes to elsewhere to her face. Their lips were closer now than she had remembered. The blackest hatred bubbled in her stomach, and she used his slight imbalance to shove him off. He was not caught off guard long enough to let her get a hit in, the dance continued.

No one knows how long it could have gone on, or who would have won. All Mindfang knew was that something was not done, her ship would be captured and everyone on board would be either culled or sold into slavery. There was only one way to give them time to escape, and it would have to be the captain’s job to do it. Expertly she clambered back onto the railing and grabbed hold of one of the ropes used secured there by the imperial forces for the way back. She had swung between ships countless times before, and this time should have been no different.

Without hesitation she leaped, only to feel a second sudden jolt of momentum when a second pair of hands wrapped around the rope above her own after her feet had already left deck. This man was insane! Had he missed the rope, or even failed to grab hold tightly enough, he would have been lost in the void of space below them. He was insane to take the leap; insane and so, so close.

“Captain Spinneret Mindfang,” he whispered from behind a smirk of shark teeth. His voice rumbled like a stormy sea and she heard it only by the virtue of having his chest level with her face. “I have heard of you.”

“What a shame. I haven’t heard of you,” she hissed back, and knew immediately that it had stung. Sea-dwellers were all alike, with egos bigger than their air bladders could hold.

“Marquis Orphaner Ahab,” he continued after a delightful pause without the smirk this time. “Marquis has a much nicer ring to it than Captain, don’t you think?”

“Still doesn’t ring a bell,” Mindfang chimed.

It was a lie, but she needed the distraction. Untangling her legs from his, she stretched until she caught the edge of the imperial deck with her boot. Her dice back on the floor of her own ship, she could not afford to engage the Orphaner in combat again. The second she had her balance was the second before he had his, and she used it to shove him back with ever ounce of strength, though not before grabbing hold of the blade in his belt. The rope that had brought them both to his deck swung back to hers, the Orphaner still on it.

She waved at him with a devilish smirk, his sword in hand, and bolted. The ship was nearly empty with most of its crew engaged on the other side, but the few that Mindfang did run into posed no match. Each and ever one, she noted as she sprinted below deck, was no lower on the hemospectrum than dark blue. The majority were seadwellers. It ought to be a compliment that the empire would send no less after the Gambligants.

The control room was not difficult to find, and the keys were on the belt of the latest troll to step in Mindfang’s path. What luck! She barged over his corpse into the dim room and without waiting for her eyes to adjust, pulled the lever she had pulled so many times before on her own ship when she was still just little Spinneret. The ship rumbled and protested as the launching rockets readied below. Surely by now the rest of the imperial crew was alerted to what was going on, and was jumping back on board. No time, no time.

Before the noise could cease echoing in the metallic parts of the framework, Mindfang smashed her fist down on the launch button. There was a moment of hair-raising silence before the storm, and then everything on board was thrown to the floor as the imperial ship blasted high into space. It would take time to stop it, and by then the Gambligants would have made their escape. Until then, she just had to keep the rockets going as long as possible.

Fighting against her leg muscles to stand and using the machinery as support, Mindfang prepare her sword for the attack she knew would come flying through the door at any minute. The last person she expected to come running through first was the Orphaner.

“How did you--”

“The rope was still attached to my mast,” he smirked, though clearly leaning on the doorway was all he could do to stay standing while the G-forces continued to build. “I climbed.”

Mindfang would not have thought him capable of such brilliance, but instead of respect she only felt redoubled hatred. She raised her sword. He raised a pistol.

“Give up. You are outnumbered with nowhere to go, my Marquise.”

How dare he? It was an insult coming from him to bring her up to his level, almost more than the horrific endearment. He probably knew that. She could see the delight in his eyes as he gauged her reaction.

“Stand down.”

“No.”

By the look on his face, he was not used to being refused something. It was almost charming. She smiled. He fired.

At such close range he should have been able to kill her easily. She only hated him more for sparing her life and sending the bullet ripping through her right shoulder instead. In the pain of it she dropped the sword, and that was all the opening he needed. He was upon her in a heartbeat. A tussle on the floor was easier under such forces than an upright fight; he was heavier, his shoulders broader, and he had her pinned for good despite her scratching and even sinking her fangs into his arm at one point. Before she could find a way to wiggle free more crew members burst in. The second the rockets disabled, two of them had her by the elbows. The Orphaner stood up as well. He probably thought he looked dignified, taking his time wiping the smears of purple and blue off himself with his handkerchief.

“Lock her up below deck,” he ordered when he thought himself decent, but his eyes were not on his crew but on her alone. “And send a message to the Empress’s court. Tell her we caught her another pirate.”


	3. Chapter 3

The plan had been to escape. That was still the plan, made now more difficult by the fact that Mindfang’s wrists were bound, her shoulder was bleeding profusely causing her clothes to stick to her skin, and she was behind bars. It was nothing the right amount of luck couldn’t handle; she had only to wait.

And wait she did. There was no way of telling how long. She spent the time scratching at rope behind her back, breaking claw after claw on it while hardly managing to fray the accursed thing, much less get her hands free. It was the only hope of progress, and that alone kept her going. The sea chantey she hummed worked to lift her spirits some, but was mostly to cover the sound of the claw against rope..

The prison cell was tiny: nothing but three walls and row of bars. Behind the bars was a hallway, and beyond that another cell. Everything was white, spotless, and smelt of damp. She could hear a guard shifting around somewhere down the corridor to the left, but didn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction of trying to strike up a conversation. She tried to remotely access his mind to no avail, not that she was really expecting to succeed on a ship of highbloods. The troll that came to replace the first when the shift changed similarly resisted Mindfang’s efforts.

The most frustrating part of the ordeal was not the smell or the discomfort of the futility, but the idleness. With so many variables up in the air, Mindfang had no way of concocting an escape plan. That much was alright with her, since she thought better on the fly anyway. What bothered her most was the place her thoughts continued to drift to.

Orphaner. How his handsome face clashed so violently with whatever it was about him that incited such black feelings in her. Even her obsession with him annoyed her. He would be her kismesis, she decided, whether he liked it or not. It both bothered and delighted her that he probably would enjoy that. They had spoken less than a dozen words to each other, known each other for but a few minutes, and already he was so predictable. Yet even through that she hoped for a nasty surprise from him in a the future. He would make a grand adversary, and one she could finally pit her wits against. The way her heart burned at the thought of him made it almost certain their hatred had been written in the stars.

When the sea chantey grew old, Mindfang started up a hate song. It had to have been more than luck that brought the sound of heavy boots and the swish of a cloak to accompany her tune not a minute after she began. She grinned to herself and continued, whispering the lyrics under her breath as listened to her hated seadweller order the guard give them some privacy. The binding on her wrists was nearly undone when the footsteps began again, marching deliberately to where she was kept.

The Orphaner stopped directly across from her. “Did you enjoy your nap?” he crooned. The question was obviously rehearsed.

“Greatly,” she lied. The piratess hadn’t slept a wink. He, on the other hand, wore fresh clothes and carried on him the faintest scent of sopor slime. “I dreamed of your demise.”

“A wriggler’s pipe dream,” he huffed, waving his hand over his shoulder. “Your ship of fools fled the second we were preoccupied.”

Mindfang showed her captor a glint of teeth from behind her sly smile. She expected nothing less from her crew. They knew that when she stuck her neck out for them, they had better take their chance or she would kill any survivors herself.

“Is the great seadweller having trouble tracking down one little pirate ship?” she sighed.

His hands slammed into the bars of the cell. There goes that ego again. “You are hardly in any place to be looking down on me, Mindfang!” He took a forced breath and lowered his shoulders stiffly. “Besides, I have their captain. They’ll come crawling to me with a ransom sooner or later.”

Her grin widened and for a moment his faltered.

“Do you honestly think they are such buffoons as to fall into your ambush? I taught them better.”

“Peasentbloods never learn.”

“You underestimate us.”

He seemed to have no retort to that. Perhaps he was not expecting her to call herself one of them. Not a hint of yellow ran through her veins after all, much less red. Perhaps he considered her close to his level. Disgusting.

“No matter,” he spat. “If they will not come to me, I will come to them.”

At that, Mindfang laughed. The Orphaner clenched a fist.

“You think I do not have the means?” She didn’t answer. It infuriated him further. “Why must you continue to make me repeat myself?” Again he grabbed hold of the bars and leaned closer. “I. Have. You.”

“Hardly,” she chuckled. It was not a well thought out reply, but it still make his fins tremble with rage.

“I have ways of making you talk, Spinneret.”

“Not from all the way over there. You are about as threatening as a caged woofbeast.”

It was the last straw for him. He flung himself from the bars in disgust and with a flick of his wrist produced a set of keys. Fitting the smallest of them into the latch, he flung open the cell door hard enough to set the room rattling and in his anger left the keys dangling there. He crossed the cell in two strides, cloak billowing behind, and grabbed the face of the tied troll sitting there, forcing her to look up.

“You will regret not cooperating.”

“Do your worst.”

He pushed her away and no sooner sent a heavy boot colliding with Mindfang’s cheek. She nearly cried out but stopped herself at a pitiful squeak, allowing her hair to tumble over her face to hide the dribble of blue from her mouth.

“Tell me your ship’s location.”

“You’ll have to do better than that,” she hissed through the throbbing pain.

“Speak up,” he ordered. “And look at your superior when you address him.”

She did not repeat herself.

“I said look at me!” he growled, and reached to force her head toward him again. This time, she didn’t give him the chance. Hard as she could manage, she tossed her head around past him and sure enough felt the resistance of flesh as her pronged horn tore through whatever it was that it came into contact with. Large flecks of purple blood splashed on the ground on the other side.

The Orphaner roared in pain as he clutched his face, more purple seeping out between his fingers. Much to her delight, Mindfang found no pity for him in her heart, instead scrambling to her feet and tugging at her bindings, now frayed to the point that she wriggled out of them by the time she was at the door. Just in time, too, because the Orphaner was in hot pursuit. She slammed the bars into his already damaged face and twisted the keys free. He grappled for them back, but she held them just out of reach.

His hands out of the way now, she get a good look at her handiwork. The dual gashes marred the once handsome face. One ran across his lip and up to his right cheek, the other parallel from the left cheek to the forehead, just narrowly missing catching his across the eye. It was a gruesome sight, sure to scar, but it only made him more beautiful.

“Dualscar has a much nicer ring to it than Ahab, don’t you think?” she mocked. This time it was he who responded with nothing but gritted teeth, much to her mirth.

Mindfang didn’t know what possessed her to do what she did next. Slipping the keys into a pocket where they could not be reached, she grabbed the bleeding troll by his jagged horns and sealed her mouth over his. Not surprisingly he tasted like blood; both of their lips had already been smeared with each their own. He kissed back hungrily, all teeth and tongue and claws ripping at whatever exposed flesh they could find. The blackness of it curdled in the pit of Mindfang’s stomach and from there surged all the way to the tips of her fingers and the ends of her toes. The bars of metal between them were all that hindered what they both ached for, time, place, loyalties be damned. Yet in the end--seconds, minutes, hours later, she did not know-- Mindfang pulled away for air. One last longing glance and she was gone.

~

The rest of the fight was easy. Alarms sounded but with no orders from their sweet captain the mobilized troops were easily taken care of. Mindfang fought her way to the lifeboats and was out of sight before anyone could locate the bleeding leader to ask for permission to pursue. Once the imperial ship was off her radar, the Spidertroll steered the commandeered pod for the nearest Gambligant hideout. Sure enough, in the sheltered harbor of an cold and lifeless moon, her beloved ship was bobbing under familiar flags. She lowered her craft into the water with a splash and let out a shrill whistle to announce her arrival. Within seconds her dearest lusus was wading toward her in the water.

On deck she was given a grand welcome by a mostly intact crew. Four of their own dead, and thirteen enemy corpses, their indigo blood still slightly visible in the grains of the wood. To top it off, there was another prize to claim, which Mindfang took when offered and smiled down at what she held. A blue harpoon gun, powerful, one of a kind, and almost certainly worth a fortune. The piratess took it back   
to her quarters with her. Dualscar was certain to be back for it, and when he was, she would be waiting.

The Captain was home. Alright, maybe not Captain. Marquise did have a nice ring to it, after all.


End file.
